Sandra Bullock and Alfonso Cuarón want to apologize to Canadians for trashing the Canadarm in Gravity, their new space movie premiering at TIFF.

“I asked them not to do that! I told them Canadians will be very upset,” Bullock said, as she settles in for a Star interview Monday alongside Gravity director Cuarón.

“They said we must. But we didn’t trash it, the debris did.”

She’s referring to the satellite junk in Gravity that smashes into the shuttle her astronaut character Dr. Ryan Stone is flying high above the Earth with fellow astronaut Matt Kowalsky, played by George Clooney.

The incident sets in motion a series of life-threatening calamities requiring last-ditch strategic moves by Bullock and Clooney.

The actress and Cuarón got to see the audience reaction firsthand at the movie’s official North American premiere Sunday night at the Princess of Wales theatre. They took note of how Canucks reacted to seeing the destruction of the Canadarm, the long robotic arm attached to space shuttles that is our most visible contribution to the U.S. space program.

“I heard an ‘Oh!’ when that happened,” Cuarón says. “Oh no, the Canadarm!”

“Anything but the arm!” Bullock says, pretending to be Canadian. “Kill George! We don’t care!”

They make an interesting contrast, this glamorous Hollywood actress in a bright red dress sharing a couch with the grey-themed work attire of Mexico’s Cuarón, whose previous films include Children of Men and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

But the two speak with one voice as they express their enthusiasm for the cosmic high that is Gravity, which opens Oct. 4 at regular theatres after repeat screenings at TIFF Monday, Wednesday and Sunday.

They talk about the logistics of creating space on Earth, using a custom-built “light box” cube that Bullock and Clooney had to squeeze into to create the film’s space walk and other special effects. She and Cuarón also discuss how they dealt with her fear of flying and how she almost got to ride on the “Vomit Comet” weightlessness simulator to prepare for her role.

How do you act in a movie like this? It’s just you and George vs. exploding machinery and the void of space.

Bullock: Dig deep, really deep. I was thinking about this the other day, as I was watching my (3-year-old) son with a little airplane that had this (disaster) scenario.

There were sound effects; he saw things. The imagination is something we lose the ability to use because we have outside stimulus helping us as we get older. When I was locked in (the light box) I went, ‘Wow, I have to dig deep and imagine everything, get to that place.’ You realize how much you’ve lost of this from when you were little. You also realize what you are capable of and definitely what you’re not capable of.

Did you feel claustrophobic?

Bullock: Oh, yes. Not just claustrophobic, you couldn’t get out if you tried. You were locked into things so many times, you’re either strapped down or harnessed in a metal contraption in the box or the 12-wire system. Everything is strapped and moving. You were just locked in. You had to just let go, because if you spent your time thinking about what you should be thinking about — which is “What if something goes wrong?” — then you’ll never do anything.

Cuarón: There was a guy on set with a red button. His whole function was to press the red button if things went wrong. I know that everybody said about something like this: by the time he presses the red button, it’s already happened.

Sandra, you say you’re a white-knuckle air passenger. Did you wonder why Alfonso was asking you to play an astronaut?

Bullock: He didn’t even know. I had to conquer my biggest fear, which was to agree to do the Vomit Comet for two weeks, plummeting out of the sky when I didn’t want to be in the sky in the first place. But again, if I was going to do it, I wanted to do it in this context with this storyteller (Cuarón) that I just had waited a lot of my career to have a moment with and I felt it was probably cosmic timing, saying, “It’s time to just get over it and this is how we’re going to do it.” But then I didn’t have to do it.

You didn’t ride the Vomit Comet after all?

Bullock: We were supposed to do it. I was led to believe, up until I learned today, that a week before shooting that we were still going to do it. They had found other ways to execute this technology, execute this way of shooting without the Vomit Comet, but I’d committed to doing it. They just lied to me! (smiles). Everyone else knew . . . by the time they told me we’re not going to do the Vomit Comet, because I’m deathly afraid of flying, then I would be at peace with anything else that they wanted me to do and they were right.

Cuarón: I tried the Vomit Comet and it’s amazing.

Alfonso, you say you’ve been interested in space since you were a child. But how about you, Sandra? Have you become a space buff now?

Bullock: I think it was only a boy thing because they’re only allowing boys up there. My guess is that a lot of girls fantasize and loved it just the same, but they weren’t given the same entry into that world. It’s happening more, it was happening more until they pulled the plug (on the space shuttle), but I was in awe of it. But I didn’t say, “Oooh, I want to go to space.” I’m not a fan of leaving the Earth.

Sandra, now that you’ve made Gravity, does this mean you no longer have your fear of flying?

Bullock: Of course not! Absolutely not! I still have it, but I thought about it the other day when the plane I was in hit turbulence and I wasn’t scared. Why wasn’t I? Usually I can’t control it. And then I realized, my son’s on the plane. When he’s on the plane, I don’t panic. Because my job is to let him know that everything is fine.

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